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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: New blasts in London
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Peppone
Marine
# 3855
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gort:
There are any number of possibilities for silencing him.
The most likely being, he didn't stop when they told him to. They chased him right through the station onto the train. He didn't stop. They thought he might be a suicide bomber, and he hardened their suspicions by running. It's hideous. It happens. He didn't have to run.
Now, would it have unfolded in this way if he had been white? Would a white face have given a longer pause for thought? Would they have got so scared, been so convinced they had to stop him, right then. Maybe they'd have just held him down, gun to head... I don't know.
This is hideous, though. If he was really just some guy going to catch a train. Five bullets to the head.
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I looked at the wa's o' Glasgow Cathedral, where vandals and angels painted their names,
I was clutching at straws and wrote your initials, while parish officials were safe in their hames.
Posts: 3020 | From: Hong Kong | Registered: Dec 2002
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Ruudy
Shipmate
# 3939
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MarkthePunk:
They had good reason to believe he was a terrorist.
Because he left a house with terrorists in it? And that makes it okay to kill him without trial?
If (and this is a big if) the authorities state that and explain how they reasonably thought he was a suicide bomber about to explode a bomb, then maybe I might accept this death as a necessary injustice. But not yet. Not till we're told more.
[ 23. July 2005, 16:42: Message edited by: Goar ]
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The shipmate formerly known as Goar.
Posts: 1360 | From: Gatorland | Registered: Jan 2003
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Mark Wuntoo
Shipmate
# 5673
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Posted
I'm with you, Goar. What makes anyone think they had good reason? ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
Until they tell us . . .
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Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light.
Posts: 1950 | From: Somewhere else. | Registered: Mar 2004
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Alfred E. Neuman
What? Me worry?
# 6855
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Posted
Wasn't the guy already down when he was shot? Seems a bit extreme, to say the least.
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--Formerly: Gort--
Posts: 12954 | Registered: May 2004
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Ruudy
Shipmate
# 3939
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gort:
Wasn't the guy already down when he was shot? Seems a bit extreme, to say the least.
He was pinned down with, some say, five men on top of him.
To me that's one of the strangest bits that doesn't make sense. If five plainclothes officers are in a pile, shooting five Glock 9 rounds into the head of the guy on the bottom of the pile means a signficant risk of fatal ricochet into the other officers. I don't get it....
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The shipmate formerly known as Goar.
Posts: 1360 | From: Gatorland | Registered: Jan 2003
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Peppone
Marine
# 3855
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gort:
Wasn't the guy already down when he was shot? Seems a bit extreme, to say the least.
Well, consider the alternative explanation. That they are basically racist; badly trained; poorly led; over aggressive; and that the operation is being conducted in the kind of gung-ho atmosphere that leads officers to exhibitionist acts of violence.
None of that's impossible, of course. But why should we find it more likely than- they had a good reason to suspect he was a bomber, he confirmed their suspicions by running onto the Tube when challenged, the officers have been trained to stop imminent threats to life, they did what they thought they had to do, and it was a horrifying tragedy, on a par with the rare case of a kid getting shot for brandishing an airsoft gun (for example).
On the other hand, maybe you're right. Maybe the the police should always be viewed with a skeptical eye...
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I looked at the wa's o' Glasgow Cathedral, where vandals and angels painted their names,
I was clutching at straws and wrote your initials, while parish officials were safe in their hames.
Posts: 3020 | From: Hong Kong | Registered: Dec 2002
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Alfred E. Neuman
What? Me worry?
# 6855
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Posted
I think the London police are doing a damned fine job under extreme pressure.
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--Formerly: Gort--
Posts: 12954 | Registered: May 2004
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Ruudy
Shipmate
# 3939
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Peppone:
Well, consider the alternative explanation. That they are basically racist; badly trained; poorly led; over aggressive; and that the operation is being conducted in the kind of gung-ho atmosphere that leads officers to exhibitionist acts of violence.
That's not the only alternative explanation. One explanation is that they are non-racist, well-trained, moral upstanding officers, who got unreasonably spooked due to the strain of events over the past two weeks and made a horrific decision to shoot a man fleeing from arrest.
That is an alternative explanation that acknowledges the positive intent of the officers while acknowledging the need for corrective action.
But a non-critical, "Oh I'm sure the officers were just doing their job well. No need for them to give an explanation" attitude is bewildering to me.
[ 23. July 2005, 17:01: Message edited by: Goar ]
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The shipmate formerly known as Goar.
Posts: 1360 | From: Gatorland | Registered: Jan 2003
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Peppone
Marine
# 3855
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Posted
Not at all. I'm waiting for the explanation too, and if they don't offer a very full one, I'll be outraged. Right now I'm just feeling shocked and, to tell the truth, imagining the dawning horror in the minds of the officers involved.
I've just been watching Unforgiven. "It's a big thing, killing a man. You're taking away everything he has, and all he ever will have."
And they won't even have the mild consolation that maybe they were saving lives doing it... God help them.
Posts: 3020 | From: Hong Kong | Registered: Dec 2002
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Beenster
Shipmate
# 242
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gort:
I think the London police are doing a damned fine job under extreme pressure.
We will get the message that the loss of this life was "regrettable". His family, his friends will morn for his life and I am sure that "regrettable" will not echo their sentiments.
That said, I really feel the need to support the police. We are so desperately dependent on them and they are working darned hard and must be badly overstretched as it is.
There are armed police. Heaps of them. I work up by Westminster and you can walk down Whitehall and past the entrance of Downing Street - there are usually about half a dozen guys with guns there. Then there is parliament - no idea how many armed police there are out and about.
One of the saddest things I saw was at Westminster Tube - there was about 20 policemen - I forget whether they were armed or not but they were wearing those flourescent vests on top of their uniform. Anyway - an indian girl arrived at the same time as me and she was carrying a rucksack and a duffel bag. Guess what. She was followed. I know, it was necessary but I did feel sad for her.
One question that evolved from work. My tall, heavy boned boss was saying that if he saw someone acting suspiciously and fitting a profile, he would be on him / her like a ton of bricks and would haul him to the ground. Me, I would move very fast in the other direction. I have no desire to be a hero. Are there guidelines as to what to do in the event that someone dangerous is "spotted"?
Posts: 1885 | Registered: May 2001
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The Scrumpmeister
Ship’s Taverner
# 5638
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Posted
He didn't halt when he was told to, he just ran. When all security is on top alert he behaved like a terrorist. I hate to say it, but from the reports thus farm it seems he invited this action.
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If Christ is not fully human, humankind is not fully saved. - St John of Saint-Denis
Posts: 14741 | From: Greater Manchester, UK | Registered: Mar 2004
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
"Regrettable." Yes. And dear God, the repercussions.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Ruudy
Shipmate
# 3939
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Peppone:
Right now I'm just feeling shocked and, to tell the truth, imagining the dawning horror in the minds of the officers involved.
Yes, I suspect someone is in the midst of a dark night of the soul.
![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif) For all involved.
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The shipmate formerly known as Goar.
Posts: 1360 | From: Gatorland | Registered: Jan 2003
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Mark M
Shipmate
# 9500
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Back-to-Front:
He didn't halt when he was told to, he just ran. When all security is on top alert he behaved like a terrorist. I hate to say it, but from the reports thus farm it seems he invited this action.
It is truly a tragedy, but on the other hand if armed police command you to stop and you don't, you will most likely get shot. It's like these people who have guns who complain when they get shot in the knee when they don't put it down...
[usual disclaimer applies... blah blah blah, only my own views, not those of my employer]
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I only know three words of Latin: deus caritas est.
Posts: 139 | From: Edinburgh, Scotland UK | Registered: May 2005
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Peronel
The typo slayer
# 569
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Posted
I agree that he should have stopped, but does anyone know if the police were in uniform. If not, it seems entirely possible that he did not know they were police, especially as - as a foreign national - he might not have spoke much English.
Frankly, if five guys in jeans and tshirts rushed me brandishing guns, I'd run. If that happened in a foreign country where I couldn't understand what they were shouting, I'm not sure my first thought would be "Police, must stop".
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Lord, I have sinned, and mine iniquity.
Deserves this hell; yet Lord deliver me.
Posts: 2367 | From: A self-inflicted exile | Registered: Jun 2001
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Gracious rebel
Rainbow warrior
# 3523
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Posted
The photo in today's Telegraph showed one of the police with a gun - and he was in plain clothes.
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Fancy a break beside the sea in Suffolk? Visit my website
Posts: 4413 | From: Suffolk UK | Registered: Nov 2002
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Rat
Ship's Rat
# 3373
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Peronel:
I agree that he should have stopped, but does anyone know if the police were in uniform. If not, it seems entirely possible that he did not know they were police
That's one scenario that occured to me too. Eyewitnesses say the police were all plain-clothes.
This is just awful.
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It's a matter of food and available blood. If motherhood is sacred, put your money where your mouth is. Only then can you expect the coming down to the wrecked & shimmering earth of that miracle you sing about. [Margaret Atwood]
Posts: 5285 | From: A dour region for dour folk | Registered: Oct 2002
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Siena
Ship's Bluestocking
# 5574
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Posted
There's a lot about this I don't understand.
Why, if the team that had him under surveillance from the point where he left the house where the terrorists, wearing the heavy coat, didn't they detain him almost immediately? Why let him get as far as the train station in the first place if you believe he's wired to a bomb? It simply doesn't make sense that they'd let him move from a street to an area with a much denser concentration of people. Perhaps a Londoner can tell me if there's a geographical explanation.
Given the officers assumed he was a terrorist, after he had been subdued, wouldn't it have been more beneficial to take him alive, so he could be interrogated, etc.?
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The lives of Christ's poor people are starved and stunted; their wages are low; their houses often bad and insanitary and their minds full of darkness and despair. These are the real disorders of the Church. Charles Marson
Posts: 709 | From: San Diego, California, USA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
It is a tragedy in the most literal sense of the word. The police saw a man in a heavy coat leaving a house under surveillance. The man must have seen a bunch of men--not in police uniform--with guns-- running after him. Does anyone know if they said 'Police' before they said 'stop'? Does anyone know how well he understood English? I imagine that he was running for his life, and the plain-clothes men were equally afraid that he was about to detonate a bomb on the train. When this happened in New York a few years ago, the man shot was holding something harmless--his keys or his mobile, I can't remember which--and the police shot him 55 times.
[ 23. July 2005, 19:35: Message edited by: Amos ]
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
Posts: 7667 | From: Summerisle | Registered: May 2001
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Living in Gin
Liturgical Pyromaniac
# 2572
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Posted
1. This guy was seen leaving the home of one of Thursday's bomb suspects.
2. He matched the description of a bomb suspect.
3. He was wearing a long winter coat in the summer.
4. When he realized he was being followed, he ran to the Tube station, jumped a turnstile, and tried desperately to get on the train.
IMO, the police had every justification for putting five bullets into his head. Unfortunately, the police don't have X-ray vision and weren't able to see whether he was actually wearing a bomb or not, but given the circumstances, they had a split-second decision to make and did the right thing. Imagine the outrage if he actually had been a suicide bomber, and blew up the Tube train because the cops didn't take him out when they had a clean shot.
It's tragic that the guy turned out to be not involved, but he had ample opportunity to de-escalate the situation by not acting like a suicide bomber. I feel bad for the cops involved and for the people on the Tube who witnessed the incident, but I can't muster a great deal of sympathy for the guy with the holes in his head. He took a stupid gamble and lost.
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It's all fun and games until somebody gets burned at the stake.
Posts: 1893 | From: Cincinnati, USA | Registered: Apr 2002
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
The innocent person who got shot was Brazilian. I think it does raise questions of whether he understood that the people chasing him were police. Stockwell is a pretty rough area and armed violence isn't unknown there.
This sort of thing has happened with people who were mistaken as Irish terrorists too - there was a horrible case a few years ago
When Harry Stanley decided to help his brother repair a broken table... he began a chain of events that was to end with his death.
I think in a situation of tension like the present one that it's just one of these rotten, rotten things that happen. It's a terrible thing to say but I'm just glad the poor soul wasn't (so far as we know) Muslim as that could really have made things worse - alienating the very community from which the police need most help - though it's bad enough as it is.
L.
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
I agree with every word in your post, Louise. Brazilian, was he? Poor man. And Gin, 'matches the description of a bomber' translates for many, police included, as 'having brown skin'.
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
Posts: 7667 | From: Summerisle | Registered: May 2001
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Mark Wuntoo
Shipmate
# 5673
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Posted
Did he know the plain clothes people had a gun?
And, just like all blacks look alike, so all Asian-looking people (that includes Brazilians) are Pakis, aren't they? ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
This is not a joke! Just listen to some of the eyewitnesses and onlookers.
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Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light.
Posts: 1950 | From: Somewhere else. | Registered: Mar 2004
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Living in Gin
Liturgical Pyromaniac
# 2572
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
And Gin, 'matches the description of a bomber' translates for many, police included, as 'having brown skin'.
Granted. It happens here too, sadly. If that were the only factor, then I'd be outraged. But taken in combination with points #1, #3, and #4 in my post above (especially #4), I don't think the police had much of a choice in how they should have responded.
It's easy to play Monday morning quarterback (sorry, I don't know what the equivalent term in the UK would be ![[Smile]](smile.gif) ) and second-guess the police several days after the incident, but based on what's been reported about the circumstances at the time, I think they acted appropriately.
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It's all fun and games until somebody gets burned at the stake.
Posts: 1893 | From: Cincinnati, USA | Registered: Apr 2002
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welsh dragon
Shipmate
# 3249
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Posted
In addition to Living in Gin's 4 points, the article in the Independent that I read said that onlookers described wires hanging from his padded coat. Of course that may have been just wishful thinking/subsequent elaboration on their part.
But what if the coat really looked that suspicious? Wouldn't that add to the defence of the police's prompt action?
Posts: 5352 | From: ebay | Registered: Aug 2002
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
More details now. He was named as Jean Charles de Menezes, 27 who was working as an electrician.
L
[ 23. July 2005, 21:46: Message edited by: Louise ]
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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chive
Ship's nude
# 208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Goar:
Question for UKers: Can UK police search a home without a warrant? I mean, not that there's any contraband lying around here or anything....
Some of the police entry powers are stated here, scroll down to Powers of Entry.
This is a tragedy. There is no doubt about it. It's a tragedy for the person involved (who may have been running from the police for all sorts of reasons) and it's a tragedy for the police. It also makes life very difficult for the police. A dilemma that's so difficult.
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'Edward was the kind of man who thought there was no such thing as a lesbian, just a woman who hadn't done one-to-one Bible study with him.' Catherine Fox, Love to the Lost
Posts: 3542 | From: the cupboard under the stairs | Registered: May 2001
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Wanderer:
I'm not criticicizing the police, and I hope that more information will come out in due time, but all of this makes me very uneasy. Someone being shot dead by the police - for whatever reason - in Britain? I'm not used to things happening like that here.
But it's all very familiar to those of us who live in places where police officers and sheriff's deputies are all armed.
If you arm your police force, people are going to get shot, sometimes innocent people. Even with well-trained and impeccably professional officers, even with an excellent departmental policy on when and when not to shoot, a few officers are going to make mistakes, and some of those mistakes are going to be fatal. You can't give police officers the option of shooting people and not think it won't ever happen, and not think it won't ever happen when it shouldn't.
Yes, it's "regretable," to say the least; it's also inevitable, and the people with the power to decide whether or not to arm police officers need to face that. The decision to arm the police force means they've said to themselves on some level that it's okay if a certain number of people get shot.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Pulsator Organorum Ineptus
Shipmate
# 2515
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Posted
This country has had a largely unarmed police force for a very long time. But the terrorists won't make us change our way of life. No, of course not.
Posts: 695 | From: Bronteland | Registered: Mar 2002
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Alfred E. Neuman
What? Me worry?
# 6855
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Posted
Listen to Ruth. She lives in Los Angeles, where the policy has long been "Shoot first and ask questions later".
I once was standing at a freeway entrance in the valley, hitchhiking. Bearded, long-haired with a backpack, I had staked out my position on the legal side of the "No Hitchiking Beyond This Point" sign. Suddenly a squad car came barreling around the corner and screeched to a halt in front of me. Two officers jumped out and leveled their automatics at me from behind the open car doors.
Three more squad cars came rushing up as the original two officers ordered me to the ground over the car's PA system. "PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR AND LAY DOWN ON THE GROUND!!!
I soon had 8 guns leveled at my shaking body as one officer kicked my legs apart and began to pat me down and another dumped out my pack. As it turned out, I matched the description of someone who had just robbed a bank a few blocks away.
If I hadn't complied instantly with their orders, I would have been dead meat and probably rated a 2-inch column on the eighth page of the LA Times next day.
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--Formerly: Gort--
Posts: 12954 | Registered: May 2004
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Rain Dog
Shipmate
# 4085
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Posted
What angers me the most in this tragedy is the response of the police. Is it really that difficult to say "we're sorry"? Apparantly it is in today's UK ![[Frown]](frown.gif) Saying they regret what happened does not go far enough - how about presenting your flaming apologies for having killed an innocent person for the vile crime of living in the same block of flats as a suspect, being tanned and being scared senseless of baseball capped men running after him with guns?
Posts: 620 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Alfred E. Neuman
What? Me worry?
# 6855
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Posted
I don't care if the gunmen were wearing clownsuits and big red noses. If they ordered me to stop, I wouldn't have gone vaulting over the stalls into a deadend subway station with the whole city on the alert for terrorists with backpacks.
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--Formerly: Gort--
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
I don't think the cops apologize here when they kill the wrong person; they say it's "regretable" and that "their thoughts and prayers are with the family" of the victim. But they don't say they're sorry because admitting guilt when they're likely to face a wrongful death lawsuit is a bad idea. A Long Beach cop (years ago I lived in LA, Gort, but now I'm in Long Beach now) shot and killed a mentally ill homeless woman who was threatening him with a knife a few years ago. The family sued for $25 million, though they only got about $200,000.
When cops tell you to do something, you do it--immediately. I get the impression that new immigrants to this area are told that by other immigrants when they get here. If people are yelling and someone has a gun, I'd say your best bet is to hit the deck, pronto, and worry later about whether it's the police or gang members or some nutburger behind the gun.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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HopPik
Shipmate
# 8510
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chive:
quote:
Originally posted by Goar:
Question for UKers: Can UK police search a home without a warrant? I mean, not that there's any contraband lying around here or anything....
Some of the police entry powers are stated here, scroll down to Powers of Entry.
This is a tragedy. There is no doubt about it. It's a tragedy for the person involved (who may have been running from the police for all sorts of reasons) and it's a tragedy for the police. It also makes life very difficult for the police. A dilemma that's so difficult.
Indeed. The guy must have been terrified suddenly being chased by a load of armed men but he'd apparently been working as an electrician in the UK four years, he couldn't have coped with that without picking up enough English by now to understand "Armed police! Stop!" or whatever they yelled at him. Why he didn't, why he ran into a tube station and jumped on a train, why he was wearing a winter coat on a warm July day... who knows, but seeing all that, after the events of the last couple of weeks and given that the guy had emerged from a house under surveillance, what else could the police think but what they did think?
Of course prayers are with that guy and his family. But also with the officer who had to make that split-second decision. I hear the Brazilian government is upset and the foreign minister is flying over here, just hope that policeman doesn't get hung out to dry as a result.
[ 24. July 2005, 00:51: Message edited by: HopPik ]
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Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and supposedly the pig enjoys it. G.B. Shaw
Posts: 2084 | From: London | Registered: Sep 2004
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Rain Dog
Shipmate
# 4085
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Posted
quote:
what else could the police think but what they did think?
Well, there was a huge jump being made in their logic. If you're going to blow someone's head off, I think you have to be very certain they are going to blow themselves up. In this case, they were very, very wrong with very circumstantial evidence to back them up.
It seems like the sole basis for their execution was his running from them when they shouted at him. In the echoey halls of the Tube, their identification as police may have been muddled and unclear hence why he legged it (which incidentally I would have done if a bunch of yobos yielding guns would turn up 25m behind me - I'm not going to check what they are yelling at me up close: of course, after today, I'll change my response patterns but I'm sure if they are not identified as cops it was not going to be clearcut outcome.) I assume if he hadn't run away they wouldn't have shot him and would have got close to him and frisked him and he'd have been off on his merry way. So fear of them seems to have been what made them make that call between him being a bizarrely acting suspect and an obvious suicide bomber. A but of a leap I think and I'm sure the inquiry will find that. I sincerely hope the gunner is no longer left in charge of a gun from now on...
Posts: 620 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Rain Dog
Shipmate
# 4085
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
I don't think the cops apologize here when they kill the wrong person; they say it's "regretable" and that "their thoughts and prayers are with the family" of the victim. But they don't say they're sorry because admitting guilt when they're likely to face a wrongful death lawsuit is a bad idea.
Surely saying sorry is not admitting guilt though - they've gone so far to admit they were incorrect and have now "ruled the man out of the investigation". Surely a sorry will not make them anymore guilty?
quote:
When cops tell you to do something, you do it--immediately. I get the impression that new immigrants to this area are told that by other immigrants when they get here. If people are yelling and someone has a gun, I'd say your best bet is to hit the deck, pronto, and worry later about whether it's the police or gang members or some nutburger behind the gun.
I guess that's the difference between the UK and the US - I would never think of hitting the floor - and given that cops don't usually have guns, I'd be inclined to believe they aren't cops and either unstable or out to get me. I'd run without a doubt as hitting the floor would just make me an easier target. Get on the train and you can get away from them...
Interestingly the train's driver had the same reaction - didn't think it was cops but rather an attack, left his cab and ran down the side of the tunnel. Another plainclothes cop ran after him and pointed a gun in his face. Luckily for him, he didn't get shot.
[ 24. July 2005, 01:45: Message edited by: Rain Dog ]
Posts: 620 | Registered: Feb 2003
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HopPik
Shipmate
# 8510
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rain Dog:
If you're going to blow someone's head off, I think you have to be very certain they are going to blow themselves up.
Sadly, and until recently I would never have envisaged myself saying this, that is placing an impossible demand upon those who have to protect the public. Being "very certain" that someone planned to blow themselves up is only likely to be possible after the event, in the gruesome jigsaw puzzle of piecing together the victims. Prior to that, police can only cope with what they see, sense, fear may be about to happen... and decide all that in a second.
I don't know where you're from Rain Dog, but if you're a Londoner, haven't you caught how, for all the bravado, this city is wobbling on the edge of a precipice? Because this isn't like the IRA in the 70's, with their coded warnings and very occasional bombings. If this is the start of a sustained campaign which simply aims to kill as many of us as possible as frequently as possible, in a densely populated city like this life could very quickly become untenable. An innocent man has been killed and that is awful, but two weeks ago more than fifty innocent people died and hundreds were injured and maimed. It's a nasty, vicious business but it's not the police or any of us who willed it so.
I read that this man was challenged in the street, not in an echoing tube tunnel. And a member of his family has said that his English was good, he should have understood the police. No-one can say why he ran, whatever the reason he didn't deserve to die for it. But equally, on the evidence available so far, I don't see that the police can be blamed for acting as they did.
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Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and supposedly the pig enjoys it. G.B. Shaw
Posts: 2084 | From: London | Registered: Sep 2004
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HopPik
Shipmate
# 8510
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rain Dog:
I guess that's the difference between the UK and the US - I would never think of hitting the floor - and given that cops don't usually have guns, I'd be inclined to believe they aren't cops and either unstable or out to get me. I'd run without a doubt as hitting the floor would just make me an easier target. Get on the train and you can get away from them...
Interestingly the train's driver had the same reaction - didn't think it was cops but rather an attack, left his cab and ran down the side of the tunnel. Another plainclothes cop ran after him and pointed a gun in his face. Luckily for him, he didn't get shot.
I'd agree with you about the driver, he didn't know what on earth was going on so did the sensible thing and got out of there. Fact is he didn't get shot, so maybe the policeman who went after him had the sense to see this?
However the earlier part of what you say seems to me, now, extremely naive... perhaps a measure of how life has changed here in just two weeks.
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Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and supposedly the pig enjoys it. G.B. Shaw
Posts: 2084 | From: London | Registered: Sep 2004
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rain Dog:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
I don't think the cops apologize here when they kill the wrong person; they say it's "regretable" and that "their thoughts and prayers are with the family" of the victim. But they don't say they're sorry because admitting guilt when they're likely to face a wrongful death lawsuit is a bad idea.
Surely saying sorry is not admitting guilt though - they've gone so far to admit they were incorrect and have now "ruled the man out of the investigation". Surely a sorry will not make them anymore guilty?
I looked at the official police statements made in the wake of the shooting of the mentally ill homeless woman who was wielding a knife, and I didn't see any apology. I also don't remember a time when police have apologized. Perhaps this reads differently in the UK, but I think in the US if the police made an official statement of apology it would sound like an admission of guilt. You only apologize when you did something wrong.
(Incidentally, this reminded me of the time when I was in a very minor fender-bender at the age of 17. I told my father that I had apologized for running into the car in front of me, and he about read me the riot act for admitting guilt at the scene of an auto accident.)
quote:
I guess that's the difference between the UK and the US - I would never think of hitting the floor - and given that cops don't usually have guns, I'd be inclined to believe they aren't cops and either unstable or out to get me. I'd run without a doubt as hitting the floor would just make me an easier target. Get on the train and you can get away from them...
Exactly. And what Gort and I are saying is that it is a very big thing to arm your police officers; it creates major changes in how you relate to them and it implies important changes in your society.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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HopPik
Shipmate
# 8510
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
what Gort and I are saying is that it is a very big thing to arm your police officers; it creates major changes in how you relate to them and it implies important changes in your society.
Which ties in with what I said about how life has changed in this city now.
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Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and supposedly the pig enjoys it. G.B. Shaw
Posts: 2084 | From: London | Registered: Sep 2004
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
I'll bet it has. And Londoners need to consider carefully whether armed officers are truly necessary before that particular change becomes permanent. Armed officers certainly wouldn't have prevented the July 7 attacks.
Don't get me wrong--maybe you really do need to arm your police force, or a portion of it. The idea of a police force without guns in a major US city is laughable. But you've got in some ways a very different culture, and there's no reason to let your decision-makers go to guns and a shoot-to-kill policy without you all having a good think about what that means.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Peronel
The typo slayer
# 569
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Exactly. And what Gort and I are saying is that it is a very big thing to arm your police officers; it creates major changes in how you relate to them and it implies important changes in your society.
I think this is my main concern. I am more scared by this incident than by the terrorist acts of a fortnight ago. One expects terrorists to kill; to be unpredictable; to cause horror. One does not expect it of the police. It's fundamentally disturbing when it is the police who kill.
I know this is easy to say, because I don't live in London any more(although my brother does, I go there fairly often, and have been caught up in IRA atrocities before, and one of the bombs a fortnight ago was yards from where I lived for years) but given the lack of certainty it would have been better had they let this guy go. Even if he had a bomb. Even if he set it off. Even if he took the train out with him.
Because the worst case scenario then is another carriage full of the dead. Whereas this could fundamentally change the relationship between police and community. In the long run, that's worse.
Peronel, deeply disturbed.
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Lord, I have sinned, and mine iniquity.
Deserves this hell; yet Lord deliver me.
Posts: 2367 | From: A self-inflicted exile | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Peronel, I know what you're saying but I can't agree with it. It would have been better if they'd shot to disable, not kill. But people do get carried away. Probably the adrenaline rush just carried the police through. Possibly they were also as nervous as hell themselves; disabling him might not have prevented him reaching into a pocket to set something off, or slapping a switch through his clothing; depending on where you intended to shoot, you don't know that under that particular part of his clothing there might not have been wires or explosives that would have been set off by the bullet. Unfortunately, it probably was safer to shoot to kill. That, or maybe 40 or so other lives could have been lost.
It's easy to say they shouldn't have done it; but since the 7th people have become a lot jumpier. You see this on public transport now, people looking sideways at each other, assessing other people's bags and general appearance, maybe moving away from something or someone they don't feel entirely comfortable with.
If he had been a terrorist and got into the Tube carriage and set off a bomb which killed everyone, the police would have been criticized for not taking action. It was a no-win situation as soon as they entered the Underground. Do you grab someone who may be carrying a bomb? If he is a suicide bomber, threatening him at gunpoint to give in won't have any effect. He's already made up his mind to die. You don't have time to be considerate. If he's cornered, he'll most likely try to take you with him. For your own survival and those around you, that has to be prevented.
There is no sense in arguing with a man with a gun. He has the upper hand, and knows it. The young Brazilian electrician's reaction is understandable, anyone would want to get the hell out of there as soon as they could. But if he'd stopped, it might well have been a memorably nasty experience - I'm sure the man with the rucksack who was briefly arrested outside Downing St won't forget it in a hurry - but, unlike that man, who did stop and perforce co-operated, the Brazilian might still be alive today.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Lurker McLurker™
Ship's stowaway
# 1384
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark M:
It is truly a tragedy, but on the other hand if armed police command you to stop and you don't, you will most likely get shot.
Shooting a suspect to stop him gettign away isn't legal in this country, they have to believe he is armed and presents an imminent danger to the police or public around him.
How to figure this out in the case of suicide bombers is a tough one.
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Just War Theory- a perversion of morality?
Posts: 5661 | From: Raxacoricofallapatorius | Registered: Sep 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Perhaps this reads differently in the UK, but I think in the US if the police made an official statement of apology it would sound like an admission of guilt. You only apologize when you did something wrong.
Yes, that does read differently here. If I was standing on a crowded tube train, say, and the motion of the train caused me to step on someones toe while trying to maintain balance I'd say "sorry" - and there's a good chance the bloke who had his toes trod on would say "sorry" to me. It doesn't, in everyday use at least, carry any implication of guilt (which would imply some sort of intention or failure to take reaonable precautions) or even necessarily fault. Perhaps in a formal statement saying "sorry" would carry more weight in regards to admitting fault than a spur of the moment "sorry". But, to me, the police saying "sorry, we made a mistake" is an admission of fault and human fallibility, not guilt.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
My understanding of the reaction to September 11th is that, as well as the deep grief for the appalling loss of life, there was shock: things like this do not happen in the USA. One innocent man being shot dead by the police is not on the scale of that unspeakable disaster, but I feel something of the same shock. Things like this do not happen in my country; this is not how my police deal with things.
I echo all that has been said about immense sympathy for the man's family and the police concerned, and I recognise the need for extraordinary measures in extraordinary circumstances. But, if we take "carrying on as normal" as equalling "beating the terrorists", then in this case we lost. This is not normal life in the UK, and I pray it never becomes such.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Beenster
Shipmate
# 242
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Wanderer:
I echo all that has been said about immense sympathy for the man's family and the police concerned, and I recognise the need for extraordinary measures in extraordinary circumstances. But, if we take "carrying on as normal" as equalling "beating the terrorists", then in this case we lost. This is not normal life in the UK, and I pray it never becomes such.
Maybe I am feeling particularly pessimistic today, but I fear that there will be many more times that the British lose before this is over. Split second decisions are taken - in my job nobody is going to die if I make the wrong decision - but for the armed police - well God help those who have that responsibility. I envy them not.
I remember President Bush after September 11 declaring "this was an act of war" and I also wonder whether there will soon be soldiers in force in London. Not necessarily in an alarmist way but I imagine the police force has a limited capacity and they are fairly stretched at the moment - and pessimistic or not I truly don't know - I can't see this wave of violence ending soon.
I hope I am wrong.
[ 24. July 2005, 09:56: Message edited by: Beenster ]
Posts: 1885 | Registered: May 2001
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RobinGoodfellow
Apprentice
# 9236
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Posted
quote:
my fear is that its a sort of "gentle reminder"... like, "we did it once, we can do it again, despite all your security".
The gentle reminder is that a secular, multi-cultural state is an absurd ideology - an invention of the human mind - completely out of sync with nature and doomed to an ugly violent end.
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The People of the Hills have all left...little people, pishogues, leprechauns, night-riders, pixies, nixies, gnomes, and the rest—gone, all gone! I came into England with Oak, Ash, and Thorn, and when Oak, Ash, and Thorn are gone I shall go too.’
Posts: 44 | From: Pennsylvania, USA | Registered: Mar 2005
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Flying_Belgian
Shipmate
# 3385
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Posted
I am often quite critical of the police and their use of force (lethal or not), but in this instance I think much of the criticism is unjustified.
Of course the shooting of an innocent person is a tragedy, and the appropriate Christian response is to feel remorse that an innocent person has been shot.
But the question concering the police's behaviour is rather different- namely, was a mistake made or was it a tragic accident. Innocent people die all the time from things like cancer, natural disasters which do not involve any human error but are a tragedy nevertheless. The question is whether the shooting falls into this category, or whether there was an error of judgement on the part of the police.
To my mind, the police acted reasonably given the information they had at the time. It's a hard call to make, but if a suicide bomber might kill 10 people, then if you thought there was a 50:50 chance of him being one- would you pull the trigger? I ask that question to make the point that even if they were not certain (and of course you can never be certain it's a suicide bomber until its too late), it was arguably the right course of action to take, given the information they had at the time.
He was challenged by the police, refused to stop, even when they pulled weapons. Of course it could have been that (understandably) he panciked, didn't think straight and just tried to run. But the police have a split second to make these decisions- on the balance of probabilities, it seemed highly likely that he was attempting something.
It's a harsh truth, but if you are challenged to stop by armed police and you don't stop, they are likely to assume the worst, especially in the current climate.
Posts: 984 | Registered: Oct 2002
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RobinGoodfellow:
The gentle reminder is that a secular, multi-cultural state is an absurd ideology - an invention of the human mind - completely out of sync with nature and doomed to an ugly violent end.
Just run that one past again. Are you seriously advocating a theistic, monocultural state as the only natural organisation of society?
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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